10:24 p.m. -- If he could go back in time, he says he would not fight the USADA investigation. "I wouldn't fight, I wouldn't sue them, I'd listen." Then he'd try and set up Marty McFly's parents at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

10:23 p.m. -- Even when starting on what he seems to think is a revealing admission, he can't help but get defensive. "I was treated differently," he says of the attention. Yes, that's because you won the Tour de France seven times.

10:20 p.m. -- Lance doesn't sound defiant as much as he sounds exasperated that Oprah isn't buying his explanations.

10:16 p.m. -- "We would never be sitting here if I didn't come back," Lance says of his 2009 return. That return, by the way, came six years after this book documenting his doping regimen came out.

10:13 p.m. -- If you had "jealousy" in the "how will Lance Armstrong explain the Floyd Landis betrayal?" pool, congratulations. You and the rest of the world saw that coming.

10:10 p.m. -- MORE COMMERCIALS. You know, I'm thinking they didn't need to stretch this out to two nights.

10:07 p.m. -- "I called you crazy, I called you a bitch, I called you all these things, but I never called you fat," Lance says with a smile. His tone indicates he's expecting a Nobel Peace Prize for the candor. He was speaking of a woman who overheard Armstrong admitting to using PEDs when he was a cancer patient.

10:05 p.m. -- Seven of the past 15 minutes have been commercials. After watching Lance dance around questions for the past hour and feign contrition, this is not necessarily complaint.

10:00 p.m. -- Does he know whether he sued O'Reilly? "To be honest, we sued so many people." We've also shifted to Lance talking about himself in the third-person. The odds of him beating Oprah to that grammatical benchmark were slim.

9:59 p.m. -- The story Emma O'Reilly told about a doctor backdating a prescription so Lance could pass a test is true. "She's one of these people I have to apologize to."

9:56 p.m. -- He denies Tyler Hamilton's story about a failed test at a Swiss bike race and a rumored bribe/donation. "This is impossible for me to answer this question and have anybody believe it," he says. And who says Lance isn't self-aware!

9:55 p.m. -- "No, I didn't fail a test," Lance says, before falling back on the technicality that he didn't fail a test until samples were re-tested.

9:53 p.m. -- Still in commercials. OWN apparently intends to go from the red to the black in one night.

9:51 p.m. -- The first two commercials of this break mention stress. Another features a kid riding a bike. If the next one features a man with his pants on fire, I'm going to suspect these aren't coincidences.

9:49 p.m. -- He tears up when talking about how he'll have to apologize to people the rest of his life. I may be wrong, but I can't remember him apologizing during the first 49 minutes of this interview.

9:47 p.m. -- Lance says cheating didn't feel wrong, nor did he feel bad about it. He also says he didn't feel he was cheating. Any goodwill he'd receive from those answers is negated when he follows up by saying he didn't realize how "big" this was at the time.

9:46 p.m. -- Was he happy when he won big races? "There was more happiness in the process, in the build, in the preparation. The winning was almost phoned in."

9:45 p.m. -- We're at the halfway point. To recap: Lance admits to doping during all seven Tour de France titles, says he never forced teammates to dope, claims there were only five clean riders in cyclin and says he's a bully, jerk and humanitarian. Also, there are a lot of Swiffer commercials on OWN.

9:43 p.m. -- Every time Oprah says something tough, Armstrong clears his throat. It's Pavlovian. He just did it while Oprah showed a clip of him talking to his critics while on the podium after winning his seventh Tour de France. "I can't reconcile this," she says before asking him what he was thinking. Lance dodges an answer. "I don't know," he said for the umpteenth time.

9:40 p.m. -- It's around this time Lance probably realized Oprah isn't going to give him a car.

9:35 p.m. -- If you're ranking one-word answers from Lance in order of least-to-most frequent: "Yes," "no," and "uhhhh."

9:29 p.m. -- Though she'll never be confused with Mike Wallace, Oprah is doing a fine job so far. Biggest issue: She's not pressing with follow-up questions. Peter Gammons nods from afar.

9:27 p.m. -- You know, sometimes I get the feeling Lance Armstrong isn't being completely honest with us.

9:25 p.m. -- Armstrong is fiddling with his hands like a fourth-grader in the principal's office. He admits he was a "bully" while leading the cycling team, but insists he never forced riders to dope.

9:22 p.m. -- "I'm not the most believable guy in the world right now, I understand."

9:17 p.m. -- The first commercial. OWN isn't available in HD on my suburban D.C. cable provider. This is mostly terrible, except for the benefit of making this interview feel like it's from 2004, when it should have taken place.

9:15 p.m. -- He didn't use PEDs when he made his comeback. The unsuccessful comeback, you may remember.

9:13 p.m. -- Armstrong blames his cancer for his illegal use of testosterone. He insinuates that he took it because he was running low on the natural hormone. Remember that poll that asked Americans whether they liked Congress better than things like cockroaches, rainy days and the Kardashians? They may have a new target question after tonight.

9:11 p.m. -- The evasion of questions has begun. Oprah asks a pointed question about whether Tyler Hamilton's claim that he and Armstrong injected each other at a hotel and dumped syringes into Coke cans is true. Armstrong laughed, cleared his throat and dodged the question.

9:07 p.m. -- Armstrong says there are "five guys" who were riding clean during his cycling days. They are "heroes." Nice guys do finish last, apparently.

9:03 p.m. -- Oprah doesn't waste any time and cuts right to the chase. She begins the interview by asking Armstrong a series of "yes" or "no" questions. He responds yes to each, admitting that he used performance-enhancing drugs, took part in blood doping and took human-growth hormones. When asked whether he used PEDs in all seven of his Tour de France wins, he answered in the affirmative.

9:01 p.m. -- Here we go. After a short introduction with dramatic music and various news clips, the interview begins. Lance is dressed smartly in a sport coat with no tie. Oprah is wearing a light-colored dress. They are facing each other in cushioned chairs. A table in the middle holds two glasses of water, both with bendy straws. There is no couch on the set, which is an early disappointment for those hoping Lance would jump on one while proclaiming his love for PEDs.

8:59 p.m. -- The countdown disappeared with one minute to go. Expect this to be the first of many disappointments.

8:52 p.m. -- The highly-anticipated interview is only eight minutes away. We know that thanks to OWN's obtrusive on-screen graphic, which has been counting down all day to the "worldwide exclusive." Good thing too. The dozens of people watching the 5 p.m. re-air of the Mary Jo Buttafuoco episode of Where Are They Now? needed to know they had just four hours to prepare for Lance.